Ruined: The Hunger, #4

By Jason Brant

Lance York and his group of hardened survivors have spent nearly two years living on an island, isolated from the horrors that devoured the world long ago. After a deluge of hurricanes force them to flee back to the mainland, they struggle for weeks to sail along the coast of what used to be the United States.

When they run out of food and supplies, they enter the long-dead husk of Baltimore. They discover that humanity has clustered into a few encampments, struggling to survive against the monstrosities that own the night.

Within hours of running ashore, Lance and his friends become embroiled in a war between the remaining shreds of mankind and the ever-evolving creatures that dwell in the darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Brant
• Release date: Nov 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386777885

Jason Brant

"JASON BRANT" is an anagram for Bas Trojann, a former Bigfoot hunter who, after being abducted (and subsequently returned) by aliens, decided to hang up his ghillie suit and enter the world of professional arm wrestling. Despite back-to-back first place finishes in the South Dakota World Championship League, Bas receded from athletics to invent cheese and give Al Gore the initiative to create the internet. Nearly a decade after writing the bestselling self-help series, Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese (Cut into Four Pieces) for the Soul, Bas has left his life of notoriety and critical acclaim behind him to write existential, erotic poetry. His wife washes their clothing on his abs.

Book preview

1

Ashrill beep coming from Brandon’s watch startled him out of heavy slumber. He jerked awake, eyes wide, and searched his surroundings. The remnants of a nightmare bled from his mind, lost before he could fully recall what it was. Something about teeth. And talons.

Darkness enveloped him.

Panic settled in a moment later.

To awaken in darkness was to awaken in mortal danger.

Brandon’s heart raced as he stayed perfectly still, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Details slowly emerged.

Dusty old clothing hung above him. Shoes rested upon a carpeted floor, lined along barely visible walls surrounding his legs and feet. Rays of light seeped in through slats on his right, giving his still-adapting vision just enough to play with.

The bleating from his watch continued.

When he sat up, Brandon heard the crinkle of a sleeping bag shifting underneath him, and he finally remembered where he was.

In a closet.

Off a kid’s bedroom.

On the third floor of a townhouse.

Baltimore.

Exhaustion had nipped at his heels all morning, and he decided to get an hour of sleep before continuing scavenging for the rest of the afternoon. After searching for a safe spot for twenty minutes, he’d settled upon the brownstone and crashed moments after laying down in the closet. Though sleeping in the small space wouldn’t keep him safe from demons—which he didn’t need to worry about until nightfall, anyway—it kept him hidden from the occasional survivor who might stumble upon him napping.

Brandon glanced at his watch, pushing the button on the side to stop the annoying alarm. He paused, eyes narrowing as he stared at the glow-in-the-dark display.

6:19 PM.

Sunset.

Or somewhere around there.

The alarm on his watch went off at sunset every single day, a warning his time outdoors was finished until the next morning. When the chime went off, he had less than thirty minutes to get to safety.

Maybe only twenty minutes as the beasts of the night often braved the tail end of the magic hour if they caught the scent of fresh prey.

But his watch couldn’t be right. He’d crashed in the closet around two in the afternoon. There was no chance he’d slept over four hours, no matter how exhausted he’d been. Knowing he couldn’t possibly sleep that long was the reason he hadn’t bothered to set a separate alarm to wake him.

The panic bubbling in the back of his throat began to boil.

Maybe the alarm is fast, he thought.

Reaching out, he pushed open the closet doors.

There wasn’t nearly as much sunlight pouring into the small space as he’d hoped. He blinked at the dark room beyond the doors, realization finally setting in.

Oh, crap.

He scrambled to his feet and stumbled across the boy’s room, glancing at the Wolverine and Iron Man posters on the walls. Kicking action figures out of the way, he sent them banging into other toys on the floor.

He staggered to a window, yanked the curtains aside.

Tore the blinds up.

Groaned at what he took in.

The sun had already set behind the tall buildings stretching out in front of him. Brandon must have slept through several minutes of his alarm going off before it finally roused him. He didn’t have twenty minutes until the city was crawling with monstrosities.

He didn’t even have ten.

Maybe five.

Tops.

"Oh, crap!"

Brandon raced across the room toward the door he’d closed hours earlier. He threw it open hard enough to send it bouncing off the wall with a bang, the handle punching a hole in the drywall.

His backpack sat just inside under the light switch. He hooked it with one hand as he sprinted into the hallway, looping one of the straps over his shoulder. Before he’d made it ten steps, he’d wrangled the other strap in place and secured it with the buckle across his chest.

The move was so practiced, automatic, he hadn’t even thought about it as he raced toward a set of narrow stairs at the other end of the house. Weight from computer parts and a soldering iron he’d scavenged earlier in the day made the backpack sway with each step.

He absentmindedly adjusted the straps on the sides of the packs to tighten the goods he carried. The weight stopped swinging around as he reached the stairs and hopped on the bannister.

Dust kicked up as he slid down to the first floor, his cargo pants cleaning a long swath along the dark wood. He hopped off the bannister just before the end, letting his momentum carry him toward the front door.

He burst outside without breaking stride, jumped down the eight stairs leading to the sidewalk, and sprinted into the street.

Brandon stopped to glance at the skyline.

Many of the buildings in the distance had already begun to lose detail.

The night approached.

And death nipped at its heels.

He glanced south, toward The Light, but couldn’t see it in the distance. The miles stretching in between were too many.

There was no chance he could make it home before the demons would emerge from hiding to tear him asunder.

His mind raced as he tried to remember the location of a nearby safe house. All the scavengers were forced to memorize the addresses of the hidden sanctuaries in case they needed a place to hide out for the night.

It was too dangerous to carry around any kind of written evidence of safe house locations in case rovers captured them. Unfortunately for Brandon, his memory had never proven much of an attribute. He’d nearly failed ninth grade biology because he couldn’t memorize facts worth a damn.

Shutting his eyes, he tried to focus.

If he was a few miles northeast of The Light, then…

Moravia, he muttered.

A safe house rested in the basement of a home on Moravia Road.

Brandon cut to his right, sprinting down the middle of the street. He was a few blocks away. If he hauled ass at a dead run, he might make it before the demons came out to play.

A roadblock of burned-out cars stretched across the street before him.

Without breaking stride, Brandon placed both hands on the hood of a charred, forever-dead sedan and vaulted over it, curling his legs up and launching forward.

His feet never slowed upon landing as he angled across an intersection and ducked between two homes, accelerating to his limit.

Heavy shadows blackened the driveway he ran down, the deepest corners impossible to see. His anxiety spiked. Anything hiding behind a dumpster or in a basement of one of the homes would pounce on him before he could react.

His footfalls echoed as he dashed toward the rear of the houses.

A foul smell emanated from a home on the left as he crossed the end of the driveway and reemerged into the dwindling twilight. He glanced toward the back and spotted a large, circular brown stain behind the rear door, which hung ajar.

Smears trailed away from the dried patch, stretching into the overgrown grass of the rear lawn.

In any other circumstance, Brandon would have avoided the yard at all costs, not knowing if the cause of that brown stain might be hidden amidst the tall grass and weeds.

But he didn’t have time to reroute, so he plunged into the heavy overgrowth.

The grass was waist high, but the weeds and saplings reached his face.

He swatted at them with his hands, protecting his eyes as he plowed forward.

A chest-high fence that had once been white but was now filthy with stains caked all over it, waited twenty yards ahead.

Brandon grabbed the top and vaulted it with ease, landing on a cracked, buckled sidewalk.

That was when the first demonic wail echoed throughout the neighborhood.

The horrific cry made Brandon’s pulse race even faster.

Fear clouded his mind.

The wail hadn’t been far behind him.

A massive cemetery stretched before him, the grounds so overgrown that most headstones were barely visible in the brush. Weeds and brambles jutted through the wrought-iron fence surrounding the property. A massive gate stood guard in front of the unused entrance, rust and overgrowth concealing much of its ornate ironwork.

Brandon spotted more brown stains on the road, one almost five-feet wide, beside the driver’s side door of a white SUV. All four doors were open. A baby seat was buckled into the back.

The last thing he wanted to do so late in the evening was jaunt through a cemetery, but the safe house waited for him on the other side. If he had the time, Brandon would have gladly run the entire way around the perimeter. But the demon’s cry behind him had canceled any detour he might have considered.

Taking a deep breath, he bounded across the street and threw himself at the large gate blocking his path. He scrambled up, grabbing hold of the spikes atop that stood a foot apart from one another, and used them to launch up and over.

He curled his body just before he hit the ground, rolling into the impact and wincing as something in his backpack crunched as it hit the pavement. Someone would be pissed off he’d busted their loot. His momentum propelled him forward as he found his feet again in a flash, then raced down the entrance.

The pavement was in better shape than most of the sidewalks snaking through the city, making his run easier than he could have hoped.

A three-way intersection split the road before him as he ran toward a twenty-foot-tall mausoleum that loomed above the jungle that had slowly consumed the cemetery over the years. A stained-glass window, partially broken, stood near the top of the structure, darkness encroaching behind it.

When he was less than ten feet away, another demonic cry reached Brandon’s ears, the terrifying lament so close he flinched and nearly lost his footing as he ran past the door of the mausoleum.

The cry had come from inside, reverberating off the stone surfaces, the effect amplifying its already-horrific nature.

Hard, sharp nails scraped along the inner stone.

Heavy breaths thundered from just beyond the front door.

They were coming.

Brandon pushed his legs to their physical limits as he plunged into the tall weeds beside the old death chamber. He would have preferred to follow one of the narrow roads that twisted through the cemetery like arteries, but his time was up. The straightest path would have to be his choice, no matter how treacherous it proved to be.

Grass cut his cheeks, poked at his eyes.

He held his hands in front of his face, doing his best to clear his vision, but it didn’t help much. Between the darkness and the overgrown brush, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him.

If his sense of direction failed and he canted off into the depths of the graveyard, he would be finished.

How many are in here? he wondered. The numerous mausoleums and buildings on the grounds would give them ample hiding places during the day. Have they tunneled under the ground like they had outside the city?

The thought frightened him nearly as much as their perpetual wailing.

The city was mainly covered in concrete, giving the demons little soil with which to dig their nests. They mostly stuck to the sewer and drainage systems, the basements of homes and buildings. But the cemetery gave them all the dirt they could desire for a proper nest.

Brandon couldn’t help but wonder if he’d run straight into the mouth of Hell. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of the beasts might be just under his feet.

Trying to brush those thoughts aside before they sapped his strength, he pushed forward. The dense brush fought him for nearly a hundred yards before he emerged onto another road, giving him a temporary reprieve from the tiny slashes of the grass. His skin already itched.

Another bay of the damned trailed him.

A dozen more followed it, each drawing closer than the last.

They had his scent.

It wouldn’t be long now before they left their hiding places. The demons were fast. Damn fast. They could catch a man in a flash as they scrambled on all fours, bounding off objects and walls with ease. Their power and speed made the hunt of a regular person little more than a game.

But Brandon wasn’t a regular man.

At least not when it came to their hunt.

They would have to work for their meal.

To his left, the road angled north toward what he hoped was the exit. He followed it, feet pounding the pavement as the cries behind him drew nearer. His breathing grew labored as he struggled to maintain his torrid pace.

He kept himself in phenomenal shape—his job required it—but no one could stay at a dead sprint for long before their body failed. Brandon’s legs were close to jellying, his lungs threatening to seize if he didn’t grant them a respite soon.

A few cries came from the east, followed by ten more from the west.

The bellies of the shadows stretching across the graveyard continued to fatten, blacken. Heavy rain clouds consumed the sky, casting the entire city in a gray pall that would soon become an impenetrable darkness. Without the urban glow of streetlamps, headlights, and bedroom windows, cities were little more than monolithic husks during the night.

Rounding a bend, Brandon spotted another gate leading to the other side of the neighborhood. A compact car had crashed into it, bending the bottom inward, lifting it nearly two feet from the pavement.

The safe house waited on the other side of the street, a few doors down.

He pressed on.

A foul stench assaulted him.

The stink of the damned.

Tall grass to his left rustled several yards into the overgrowth.

One of the beasts wailed in rage and hunger.

A path cut through the grass, heading straight for Brandon.

It would be on him in seconds.

Brandon charged the gate. He reached into one of the cargo pockets of his pants, fishing for something to fend off the demon. A normal person would have reached for the sidearm attached to his hip.

That was why most were already dead.

He might have been able to shoot down one.

Two at most if his aim was true.

But dozens of them? Hundreds?

Not a chance.

His fingers wrapped around a flare resting at the bottom of his pocket. Tugged it free. As he approached the destroyed gate, Brandon dropped and slid under the mangled metal like a baseball player stealing second. The friction warmed his pants, tore at the fabric.

He struck the flare as he hopped back to his feet, wincing at the bright fire that belched from the end. The smell struck him instantly as the burn intensified. Stopping just behind the car that was wedged under the gate, he spun around and threw the flare into the cemetery as far as he could.

It arced through the air, end over end, illuminating trees and the ever-expanding overgrowth.

The stench of it, the hiss of its burn, and the light it emitted would cover his tracks for a short while. If the distraction bought him even thirty seconds, that would be enough for him to round third and slide into home.

Or so he hoped.

When it disappeared deep into the graveyard, Brandon cut his eyes back to the homes lining the far side of the road. One had a safe house hidden in the basement, but in his panic, he couldn’t remember exactly which it was.

Every yard had fallen into disarray.

The driveways were cracked and buckled.

Windows were broken, doors smashed.

Cars covered the street and sidewalk at odd angles. An old accident down the road had blocked traffic during the initial panic of those final days. People had attempted to drive around it on the sidewalks only to create a bigger jam.

Most likely died there and then, trapped inside their cars with their loved ones and the few valuables they’d grabbed on their way out of their homes or offices.

It was a common sight Brandon saw so frequently during his days scavenging that they’d become little more than obstacles he climbed over in search of goods. The old days were of little interest to him anymore.

He glanced left, then right, unsure which direction led to the house.

Knowing he didn’t have time to waffle over the decision, he cut left and jogged toward the far sidewalk. His eyes scanned each dilapidated home he passed, hoping something would jar his memory.

The shadows darkened around him.

Demons would flood the streets any minute.

With even a pinch of luck, he would be locked inside the safe house before the first of the creatures burst from the graveyard.

A home with yellow siding and blue shutters stood two driveways down. Shingles had blown off the roof. One end of a second-story gutter had torn loose, the other hanging precariously above a shattered window on the first floor.

That was it.

The building had deteriorated since he’d seen a picture of it over a year ago.

Brandon wanted to holler in victory.

He angled toward the house.

And then a man shouted nearby.

2

Brandon froze in place, listening. For a moment, he dared to hope the shout had only been his imagination running wild, that fear had twisted his mind into hearing things that couldn’t possibly be there.

This side of the city had been deserted for years.

No one could have survived out here.

If the demons hadn’t devoured them, the bandits would have cut their throats.

Just when Brandon decided he had imagined the voice, the man bellowed again. The anger and fear in that cry made the hair on the back of Brandon’s neck stand up.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the noise, but didn’t see anyone in the street. The shouting was close, though. Around the corner at the most.

The shrieks of the damned continued to grow in number and volume. The darkness had finally released them, and the hunt had begun.

Brandon knew the intelligent decision would be to flee to the safe house, secure the area, and hunker down for the night. Investigating the shouting man would likely get him killed. In short order, the demons would descend upon whoever made that racket.

A woman screamed.

Brandon sprang toward the sound before he’d even realized he’d turned around. Crossing the street in a flash, he darted toward an intersection ahead.

Pausing at the last house, he peered around the corner, careful not to expose himself to anyone who might be nearby.

A man stood in the middle of the street, a gun held in his hand. His hair dangled in front of his face, the ends of it blowing around as he huffed and puffed. Like most people nowadays, he was gaunt and filthy. He wore a leather jacket paired with blue jeans, the knees ripped out.

He was a bandit, of that Brandon had no doubt.

Apparently, gangs liked to dress alike even after the apocalypse.

The man pointed a pistol into the face of a man kneeling before him.

Brandon couldn’t get a view of the captive’s expression from this angle, but the man’s hands were up.

A few feet away, a woman with brown hair pulled into a bun also had a weapon, but hers was aimed at the bandit’s head. Even from halfway down the block and in the failing light, Brandon could see the rage on her face.

Beyond the small group was a large moving van. Someone with horrible taste had spray painted it matte black. The outline of the moving company’s logo was still visible on the side.

The back door was the kind that slid into the roof.

It was open.

A dozen people sat in the back.

Rope lashed their hands and feet together.

Most had rags stuffed in their mouths.

Another rough-looking hombre stood guard at the door, holding onto a handle above his head. He held a rifle in his other hand, pointing it at the group in the street.

Tattoos crisscrossed his bare arms. Straight hair ran past his jaw. Week-old stubble covered his chiseled chin and hollow cheeks.

Whistling, the guard waved the end of the barrel toward the van. Waste ‘em and let’s get the fuck outta here!

Brandon swallowed.

Of all the days he could have slept in.

She’s got a gun pointed at me, asshole! the man in the street shouted. The hell you want me to do?

Stop bein’ a pussy is what I want. The guy in the truck laughed. You can’t take care of a little girl and that cry-baby cuck, then maybe you shouldn’t be runnin’ with us at all!

The shrieking from the cemetery intensified.

The cries echoed throughout the city.

Gettin’ busy around here. We gotta roll, dickhead, the guard in the truck hollered. Let’s go!

The man on his knees shouted something toward the truck, but Brandon couldn’t make it out. Sounded like drag him or maybe drain him. Didn’t make any sense to Brandon.

Not that it mattered.

He was either going to help the couple in the street or run to the safe house.

Running to the safe house would increase his odds of survival much more than trying to help the strangers. But he knew he wouldn’t sleep a wink over the next month if he abandoned them.

Damn it, he thought as he searched for a way to end the standoff ahead. If he ran around the house, the backyard might be close enough for him to do something. What that something might be, he didn’t have a clue. Though he had a pistol on him, using it never occurred to Brandon.

The idea of shooting another human being wasn’t something he’d ever contemplated. He just didn’t have it in him to kill someone else, no matter how bad they might be.

If he could distract the shooter for a second or two, maybe the woman would put him down. Then again, if she were too afraid to fire at someone, like Brandon, they would all be killed. The moral dilemma of helping someone else kill a man, while being unable to do it himself, wasn’t lost on Brandon.

When he reached the rear of the dilapidated building, he paused behind a back porch that weeds had long since reclaimed. Through the overgrowth and latticework surrounding, he spotted the standoff. A chain-link fence, rusted and damaged in places, stood between them.

The gunman had moved closer to the guy on his knees. He held the pistol within two feet of his soon-to-be victim.

Brandon finally had a better angle to see the face of the kneeling man, shocked at the expression of the captive. The man wasn’t scared shitless from having a gun shoved in face. Instead, he looked downright pissed off.

He stared up at the gunman with pure vitriol.

The woman beside him appeared a little more composed as she continually ordered the gunman to drop his weapon. Medium height with a slender but strong musculature, her skin was bronzed with a deep tan and her brown hair was sun-streaked with golden-honey hues.

Her feet were shoulder-width apart, knees and waist slightly bent.

A perfect shooter’s stance.

Brandon scanned the area around him for something to throw at the gunman. A bike, tangled in weeds and grass, sat beside the chain-link fence. Rakes and shovels had been propped against a small shed at the back of the property.

He had little chance of throwing anything that far with any kind of accuracy.

Drop the gun, bitch, or your boyfriend eats it right here, right now! The gunman made a show of racking the slide on his pistol and ejecting a live round.

Inching forward, Brandon finally spotted a row of bricks lining what used to be a flower garden. He could barely see their outlines through the grass and the darkness.

He tore one free of the earth.

Inched around the porch.

Hurled it as hard as he could at the gunman.

The brick slammed against the man’s shoulder with an audible thud. He stumbled a half step sideways from the impact, his arm spasming.

Fire belched from the end of the pistol.

Thunder echoed through the empty streets. It mixed with the shrieking of the demons into a cacophony